Kittel wins final Tour of Britain stage

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Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) bookended his Tour of Britain with stage victories, adding a London sprint stage win to his success in Liverpool on the opening day. The German topped Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) and Nicola Ruffoni (Bardiani CSF) in a high-speed dash to the line.

Cavendish looked to be a strong contender for the stage win, but Kittel grabbed the wheel of his lead-out man Mark Renshaw and set a gap, forcing Cavendish to jump first. He then held off the Manxman in the drag race to the line. Ruffoni nearly pipped Cavendish with a late bike throw, but was a hair too late and settled for third.

Dylan van Baarle (Garmin Sharp) held onto the peloton to claim the overall victory, with Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) in second, and Bradley Wiggins (Sky) rounding out the final podium.

The final stage in London at just 88.8km in length was always going to be an aggressive race, but the gauntlet was thrown down from the gun by former race leader Alex Dowsett (Movistar), who sparked a vigorous chase when he escaped with six riders on the opening lap.

When his move was reeled in, his former companion Jan Barta (NetApp-Endura) followed Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling) and Manuele Boaro (Tinkoff-Saxo) off the front.

No move could get more than a dozen seconds until Barta ditched the others and was joined by a less threatening group that included mountains classification leader Mark McNally (An Post-Chainreaction), Stephen Cummings (BMC), Chris Latham (Great Britain), and Liam Holohan (Madison Genesis).

McNally might have been regretting his aggression when he crashed at the start of lap 5, since all he had to do was finish the day to collect the mountains prize, but fortunately he was able to get back on the bike although not back in the breakaway.

The four others continued without him, but were not able to gain even a minute on the field on the 8.8km circuit. Cummings claimed the sole intermediate sprint at the halfway point, but despite hard work from the quartet, the peloton continued closing in, coming within 10 seconds of the catch with three laps to go.

Andreas Stauff (MTN-Qhubeka) bridged across the gap and helped to reinvigorate the breakaway, but only Latham and Holohan continued, while Cummings and Barta went back to the field.

The gap went back out to 35 seconds with two laps to go, but Holohan then flatted out of the move, leaving only two to try to hold off the chase.

The sprinters' teams were on point, and at the bell lap, Omega Pharma had whittled the duo's lead down to just 12 seconds, and then Garmin Sharp came to the fore to put the final nail in the coffin. Latham was the first to drop back to the field, but although Stauff pressed on, he too was swept up in the mad charge to the final sprint.

Giant-Shimano and Omega Pharma-Quickstep lined up on opposite sides of the road, drag racing to the final turn. While Renshaw took control to lead Cavendish through the final few hundred meters, it was the cagey German who positioned himself wisely, pushing Cavendish to play his hand a millisecond too soon, and then powering away to take his 13th victory of the season.

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